That year, like so many before it, in the turn of the land and the flight of birds,
the wet and the green, the dry and the brown,
and Zechariah had the rope tied around him,
in case he had to be pulled, a corpse,
from the wrath of the Lord,
the rope a heavy chain to the world.
His bare feet slid across the marble,
the cracks between stones softly cramping his thick robes
stiff with the breastplate bearing the stones of the Houses of Israel,
under the tiered turban,
under the finely woven wool,
the cracks under his poor and bare feet, like Moses' feet before the bush of fire;
he offered and tended the fire in the Holy of Holies,
the sound of singing creeping in like ineffectual smoke
along the curved sinews of the rope.
The thoughts of his heart were boulders, rocks,
falling, rattling, cracking the deep silence.
He again tended laying of the incense and the fire,
lay prostrate before the altar.
Silence approached.
Sounds of the singing ceased.
The silence was too great,
the fire and lamps too strong,
and the color was—
more like the blue line of light in a curling wave of clear water,
dancing.
"Zechariah."
"How can I be sure of this?"
The light stilled, hardened, spiking cold like a star.
Zechariah stumbled out of the Holy of Holies;
as he entered the outer courtyard,
he saw that many hands had taken hold of the rope,
beginning to pull him towards
their frightened faces,
their fervent faces,
their waiting,
ever waiting.
His enforced silence,
months only listening, and watching, and praying,
folded in his deep shame,
he a priest, he so favored!
Ineffectual sight.
Now he must be silenced
before the great mystery dancing inside Elizabeth.
Slowly, as the spark set her aglow,
he spoke: "His name is John."
